Ah, Tyler and the man-mobile. Question: How many man things can you find in the bed of our truck? How many woman things? There's at least one of each....but yes, manness most definatly wins. Chainsaws, guns, augers, all the things an Alaskan man needs to bring home the family necessities, the three "F's": Fire, Fish, and Food. We've had amazing weather the past few days, and Tyler and I were lucky enough to have a day off together. We decided to head for Cooper Creek, the closest area to us that's supposed to have decent gold panning. We met quite an amazing man in the campground last summer when we were living between various tent sites. His name is Robert, and he's the quinticential Alaskan gold panner with the long grey beard, aviator sunglasses, and a bicycle to ride anywhere he may need. He spent last summer living in Seward in his tent, collecting derelict (or lost) fishing gear at low tide. He'd shine it up and sell it from his tent. This, of course, intrigued Tyler, and the two of them struck it off straight from the bat, having plenty of conversations regarding fishing in Resurection Bay. We soon found out that one of Robert's favorite pastimes is gold panning, and Tyler soaked up all gold digging information he could get. Robert left at the end of last summer, and graced us with camping and fishing equipment galore, not to mention another bicycle! So, when Robert showed up in town about 3 weeks ago, we were both quite excited to see him! He gifted some gold pans, and showed Tyler where to go on the map. After about a week, he decided to skip town and head back to Oregon, so we ended up with his slush box, and two pairs of cross country skis, boots, and poles! We were sad to see him go so soon, but greatful for the toy additions!
We headed towards Cooper's Creek and found a wonderful spot to camp the first night, right on a lake teeming with baby trout. You can see the mountains behind me, too...quite a beautiful day! And so warm---we'd gotten above 70 that day!
The next morning we woke up, went to breakfast at a wonderful hotel/lounge in Kenai, then began our day of gold panning. You can see Tyler using the slush box above. The idea is to pile river gravel on top of it and let the river's current work the gold out of the gravel. It was a little difficult to get the hang of--we only got three flakes out of it, but I'm sure if properly used we would have harvested more.
This is Tyler with the gold pan. Here, the idea is to pile a bunch of gravel onto the pan, then start sorting and shaking until you're left with all the heavy materials on the bottom. Gold is heavier than most rock you're sifting through, so if you shake the pan with water in it, the gold will sift to the bottom.
Here's Tyler getting water in his gold pan to sift the rocks some more. We did get some gold flakes this way. It's exciting to think there's gold just hanging out in the river and we can actually find it! However, our find was anything but glorious for all the hours of work we put into it :o). We'll have to perfect our technique and try again.
We headed towards Cooper's Creek and found a wonderful spot to camp the first night, right on a lake teeming with baby trout. You can see the mountains behind me, too...quite a beautiful day! And so warm---we'd gotten above 70 that day!
The next morning we woke up, went to breakfast at a wonderful hotel/lounge in Kenai, then began our day of gold panning. You can see Tyler using the slush box above. The idea is to pile river gravel on top of it and let the river's current work the gold out of the gravel. It was a little difficult to get the hang of--we only got three flakes out of it, but I'm sure if properly used we would have harvested more.
This is Tyler with the gold pan. Here, the idea is to pile a bunch of gravel onto the pan, then start sorting and shaking until you're left with all the heavy materials on the bottom. Gold is heavier than most rock you're sifting through, so if you shake the pan with water in it, the gold will sift to the bottom.
Here's Tyler getting water in his gold pan to sift the rocks some more. We did get some gold flakes this way. It's exciting to think there's gold just hanging out in the river and we can actually find it! However, our find was anything but glorious for all the hours of work we put into it :o). We'll have to perfect our technique and try again. 
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